Born in New York in 1919 as Jerome David Salinger to an Irish Catholic mother, and a Jewish father, Salinger was troubled by the fact that he was half Jewish, especially when he fought in World War II. Salinger was very close with his mother, but in turn he had a very cold relationship with his father, (Morrill).

His father, Sol, owned a business of importing meat and cheese from Eastern Europe. He pushed his son to make money and achieve high social status. He also hoped that he would take over the family business. Salinger made a trip to Poland by his father to see the other end of the meat business that his father wanted to push him into. The slaughterhouses disgusted him so much that he

After reading The Catcher In The Rye, it could be gathered that Salinger made the military school look so bad because of his aversion from the military. This book may be a kind of venting of feelings for him. Salinger may have been very angry about his military experience while writing this book, and making the military school look bad was just his way of getting revenge for what happened to him in the war.

Even something so insignificant as an ending to a story relates to Salinger's life. Like Salinger's life, his endings make no sense to an outsider but to him it probably is all quite simple. Many people want to know more about Salinger's life, and how he lives. This information is for him to know and for us to ponder over. These endings may mean absolutely nothing, but someone who is an avid fan of his work may look into things a little deeper. Even with all characters and plots aside, these stories all share a strong resemblance to their author's life.

As Salinger grew, he flunked out of several schools, public and private, and finally ended up at a military school. He enjoyed the school, and liked the structure and discipline that he was taught.

Although he enjoyed his schooling at Valley Forge Military School, he portrayed it as a hellhole in his book, The Catcher In The Rye, (Morrill). This may be due to his violent and traumatic experiences in WWII.

This relates to Salinger's relationship with his father. In the story, the father was not there, just as Salinger's father was not there for him when he was a child. Even though the father doesn't come up until the very end of the story, it is still leads to a very big connection in Salinger's life.

"Down at the Dinghy," is a short story that doesn't have much relationship to Salinger's life until the end. A small child is playing on a boat near his house and his mother comes outside to talk to him. The boy then tells his mother that the hired help in the house has called his father a "big sloppy kike." (p.86, Nine Stories) the young child had overheard the help calling his father names, but luckily the father was not near, and the child did not know what the phrase meant.

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Approximate Word count = 1962
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)